Far too many believers are feeling dirty, worthless and ashamed of themselves; shame is a silent, but deadly disease that pollutes the lifeblood of many believers faith. As a result, we feel unclean and therefore unworthy to approach God and have the living and intimate relationship that he wants to have with us. Shame prevents us from intimacy with God because it makes us feel unworthy and distant from him. Godís standard is nothing less than perfection and none of us measure up, if we did or we ever could measure up sufficiently righteous for heaven through our performance, we would not have needed a savior at all. For it is Godís grace, not our striving, that makes us accepted and acceptable. It is Godís performance through Jesus Christ, not our trying hard to perform, that eradicates our shame. Some of us spend most of our life giving up. We are tired, burned out, disillusioned, depressed, addicted to something. People around us feel frustrated by the huge disparity between our capabilities and our performance. They either pep talk us concerning our value, or shame us for not performing. No one can have a close relationship with us; we push people away physically and emotionally, and push God away. We are the ones in families, churches, and society that people take care of-for a while, until we are given up on because of our lack of response. For all the performance-based people around us, we are simply bad for public relations. Once in a while we find ourselves in an environment that shames us for being so defective, then we start trying harder, but it does not last for long, we are simply out of gas to start with, we merely survive.